


Interwoven

by Lynse



Category: American Dragon: Jake Long, Danny Phantom
Genre: Crossover, Developing Friendships, Gen, Ghost King Danny Fenton, Misunderstandings, Two Shot, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29274123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynse/pseuds/Lynse
Summary: In the Far Frozen, a portal opens up and doesn’t close. In the NYC, Jake is suddenly faced with freak snowstorms. And Danny? Danny’s just trying to figure out why he’s supposed to be the one dealing with all of this.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Jake Long
Comments: 76
Kudos: 355





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oceankat8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceankat8/gifts).



> Written as a thank you for oceankat8. Set mid S2 for Jake and late S3 for Danny.

“What’s with the newspaper?” Jake asked as Fu tossed it on top of the homework he’d spread out over the counter at the shop. Not that he didn’t mind an excuse to avoid math, but he never read anything except the comics in the paper. He got all the news he needed from everyone else.

“Cold snap.”

“So? It’s February. It happens.”

“Colder cold snap. With snow.”

“Huh?”

“Just read it, kid.”

Jake read it. Twice. “I don’t get it.” It was just a news report. So there’d been a few freak snowstorms bringing more snow than usual. It happened. It was called weather.

“You don’t see anything unusual about it?”

That meant there _was_ something unusual about it. Great. He had no idea what it was. “Overnight storms happen, they can stretch into the next day, too, and there’s nothing weird about snow in winter.”

“Dropping that much in such a small area?”

Jake hesitated.

“Snow squalls aren’t typically restricted to a few city blocks.”

“It doesn’t say this was!” Jake protested, though he started to skim the article again to be sure of that.

“Read between the lines. Look at the road closures where the water mains burst.”

“It might just be an old area.”

“Look at a map,” Fu said pointedly, “and then check it out in person. See if you still think that.”

“Now?”

“You think it’s gonna be any easier to spot stuff in the dark? You’ll be lucky to make it there in the daylight as it is.”

Jake groaned. At least it was Friday. An earlier mishap meant he was technically grounded and not allowed to hang out with Trixie and Spud for the weekend, but his mom had intervened and made sure that he wasn’t stuck in the house, since Gramps could keep an eye on him at the shop. His dad had bought that excuse, thankfully, which meant dealing with more Am Drag business wasn’t going to be a nightmare, but still.

“Yo, who the heck even benefits from freak snowstorms?”

Fu snorted. “Never anyone good, but not anyone I’ve run into over here, either. I’ve got a game with Marty later. I’ll see what he’s heard.”

“Which means you expect me to check this out and then come back and do research?”

“You’ve got a whole weekend to finish that homework.”

Jake rolled his eyes but started to gather up his homework for later. Experience had taught him that not taking the time to do that meant it went missing, meaning he typically failed it even when he managed to find or redo enough not to get a zero, and then he got grounded. Again. “Great trade,” he muttered. “This is exactly how I wanted to spend my night.”

“That is good to hear, young dragon,” Gramps said, and Jake jumped. He hadn’t noticed G standing just behind the beads that separated the front of the shop from the back. “It is nice to see you taking such initiative. Please, spend the night searching for information, and tomorrow we can begin our research. I will inform my daughter that you will be staying here for the night.”

Aaaaaand somehow this had turned into even more work and less sleep. “Aw, man.”

-|-

“Thank you for coming, Great One.”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck and wished correcting Frostbite would get him to stop calling Danny that, but he knew from experience it wouldn’t. If Sam and Tucker were here, they’d just exchange looks and smirk at his expense, saving their teasing for later. Maybe it was just as well he’d gotten Frostbite’s message so late. Heading to the Far Frozen was never a quick trip, but tomorrow was Saturday, so Danny knew he should get a chance to sleep in barring ghost attacks or exploding prototypes.

“It’s no problem,” Danny said, wondering if it would be rude to just cut to the chase and ask what was wrong. He took a sip of the hot chocolate Frostbite had given him instead and promptly burnt his tongue. It was steaming despite the chill in the air, though being inside what Danny thought of as a reception cave meant he wasn’t out in the ghost wind that caused the infamous whiteouts of the Far Frozen. If he wasn’t out of here in half an hour, he’d be stuck till it blew over.

Well, not stuck. He could go through it. It just wouldn’t be fun.

Granted, the fact that Frostbite had summoned him here after Danny had managed to crawl into bed wasn’t a particularly good sign, if only because Frostbite had never summoned him like this before. The missive had managed to be long but vague. Danny would call it a letter, but missive did seem to be the best word for it; it had been stamped with what Danny suspected was some kind of official seal of the Far Frozen and sent to him via a letter-carrying pixie ghost, which he hadn’t known even existed despite the Box Ghost being, well, the Box Ghost.

“We did wonder if it was the right time to bring you such concerns,” Frostbite continued carefully, eyes never moving from Danny’s face, “but Clockwork assured us this would not be amiss.”

Okay. Weird. Danny didn’t know what Clockwork had to do with anything or why Frostbite would ask him about asking Danny in the first place, though he had a few sneaking suspicions about that. “This, um, isn’t just a quick thing you need me to do here, is it?”

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help, exactly. It was more that he wasn’t keen on getting tossed into the future to fix something before the timeline went really bad, really fast, and Clockwork never seemed to be involved in stuff that didn’t involve the timeline. Even if he was only involved because Danny had gone to him begging to be allowed to do something the Observants would never ordinarily allow and he’d thought Clockwork might let him get away with it.

Frankly, Danny was more concerned about the fact that he had yet to hit his growth spurt. Tucker had shot up two inches last summer and another half inch since last month, and they were only halfway through grade ten. Like, yeah, okay, fine, there was time, there was still plenty of time, but if his genetics had been messed up by the accident like Jazz had mused that one time….

“Not exactly, Great One,” Frostbite admitted. “It seems that a portal has opened up in Crystalline Caverns.”

“And—?” Danny wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be able to do about that. “Natural portals open and close all the time, don’t they?”

“They do, but this one has not closed.”

“So you don’t think it’s natural?”

“I suspect something is keeping it from closing.”

“Right.” Maybe this was why Clockwork had thrown him under the bus: he figured it was a good learning opportunity that involved jumping in and immediately being over his head. Heck, for all Danny knew, that’s why Frostbite had brought the issue up to Clockwork in the first place. He knew the two ghosts liked to look out for him, which should be a nice change from the ghosts who straight up attacked him, except that it involved stuff like this. He had no idea what he was supposed to do about this. There was no way he’d be gone by the time the next blizzard hit. “Um. Lead the way, I guess?”

There was a chance he’d get lucky and it was just a ghost with the ability to create portals between realms, like Cujo and Wulf. A prankster like Youngblood would pull something like this.

That still didn’t explain why Frostbite and Clockwork thought this was his problem, but whatever. That’s what friends were for. And he needed to keep his ghost friends as friends; he really didn’t need more enemies on that front.

Danny’s hot chocolate had gone cold by the time they reached the portal, in no small part because the storm he’d thought was half an hour out had come while he’d been sheltered inside. The portal wasn’t very far into the Crystalline Caverns, and the storm from outside blew right through it. Probably not a good sign. Danny finished his drink in four gulps before walking closer and squinting at the portal through the swirl of snow. It looked like a normal natural portal, but that didn’t mean anything. “Where’s it lead? Do you know?”

“Into the human realm.”

Ah. _That_ was why they’d asked him to deal with it. Really, Frostbite could’ve led with that. Not panicking people who didn’t believe in ghosts, let alone ghosts like Frostbite, would be important. After all, panicking people wouldn’t make whatever job Clockwork was supposed to be doing any easier. Danny grinned and handed over his empty cup, which looked about as big as a thimble in Frostbite’s paws. “Leave it to me.”

-|-

If the weather weren’t so unpredictable, Jake would’ve taken his skateboard, but as it was, he flew most of the way there and then landed to approach on foot. The air had a noticeable bite to it here, no longer just nippy but something with teeth. He shivered and wished he’d brought a warmer jacket, but it hadn’t been this cold when he’d left the shop, and the sun going down was not the main reason for the difference.

Fu was right. This wasn’t normal. There shouldn’t be this much of a temperature differential in such a small area, and that wind was _cold_.

Another great gust of it blew in his face, bringing with it a flurry of snow, and he hunched down further into his jacket as he hopped over the barriers that had been set up. The road and sidewalk might technically be closed, but if there were work crews around, they weren’t in this section.

Snow crunched underfoot as each footstep broke through a thin layer of ice beneath the fluff of this new snow, and it sounded loud to Jake’s ears despite the wind that would occasionally rise to a howl. Jake blinked away melting snowflakes, but there didn’t seem to be a direction he could turn to face away from the wind. It was swirling here, caught where it shouldn’t be caught, but he hadn’t seen or felt any sort of barrier. It was…it was like it didn’t want to go too far away from its source. Or maybe like it was trying to get back to it.

Or maybe that he was just too cold to notice anything.

Jake trudged on. The apartment buildings here fell away around a park a block over, and the snow got deeper as he got closer to it. He regretted wearing shoes even before his socks were soaked through—he had not been thinking when he’d left, and clearly no one else had been, either—but he wouldn’t be any better off if he tried to dragon up and fly against this wind; it would just be exhausting, and there were too many lights on for him to want to try anything like that out in the open. Walking was safer.

Of course, this way also meant he left behind a trail of footprints leading right to him. The snow was rapidly filling them in—the flakes were smaller and it was falling harder now—but his trail was entirely too visible in the light of the streetlamps. If anyone else had been out in this earlier, their tracks were gone now, smoothed away by snow and wind.

It made him feel like a sitting duck. And like he was walking into a trap. Aside from the weirdness of this weather, he hadn’t spotted anything inherently magical, not even when he looked with the Eye of the Dragon.

Jake wasn’t sure how long he spent searching, moving more on autopilot than anything else since he was chilled to the bone, before he spotted something. He was far enough away from the lights now that he was mostly staring into black, the dizzying whirl of snow more sense than vision and motion even when he was looking out with magical sight, and he saw it mostly because it wasn’t moving.

Well, because it wasn’t moving, and because it wasn’t shaped like a tree or a snow-covered bench or stretched like a finger drift that came up to his waist at its highest point.

The figure stood taller than him, though that wasn’t hard, and if it was lightweight enough, it could be standing on top of a hardpacked drift. Jake ducked his head against the wind and pushed forward, though brief glances upward showed it hadn’t moved. Maybe it was a tree after all. Maybe—

Something tumbled into the snow beside him, and Jake jumped and yelped. The figure was humanoid, a boy, glowing slightly—

Ghost.

Weather ghost?

Did weather ghosts exist?

For all Jake knew, this could be a spectral storm. Spectral squall? Phantom freeze? Phantom flurries, since it was still coming down? Something like that. He wasn’t as good at detecting ghosts as he was magic. If this were a supernatural snow, he really wouldn’t know the difference.

“Ow,” the boy muttered as he righted himself, floating up into the air and seeming completely unaffected by the wind except the way his white hair whipped around. One gloved hand rubbed at his head, but then bright green eyes spotted Jake. “Oh. Uh. Hi?”

Jake stared for a second and then risked a glance toward the figure he’d been approaching before. It was gone. This one was the distraction, then, and he’d fallen for it. Perfect.

Booted feet hit the snow beside him. “Whatever you think you saw, I can explain,” the boy said quickly. He hesitated. “Um. If you saw anything.”

Well, whoever this ghost was, he clearly didn’t realize that Jake was the American Dragon. If Jake knew how to use that to his advantage, that would be ideal, but of course he didn’t. Fu might’ve, but he hadn’t thought Jake would have any trouble doing this reconnaissance or he would’ve skipped out on his poker game to come with.

Jake was still looking at the ghost, but the ghost looked in the direction Jake had checked earlier and then frowned as he turned back. “Did you actually see anything unusual or am I just sounding like a lunatic right now?”

Jake still had no idea how what he should say, so he said nothing.

“Right,” the ghost said. Under his breath, he added, “Way to go, Danny, you don’t even know if he speaks English and all you’re doing is freaking him out.” Then, louder, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

That might be true. In Jake’s experience, if someone wanted to attack, they’d have done it by now. But this was a ghost, and if he wasn’t involved in this freak snowstorm mess somehow, Jake would do Haley’s chores for a month. His seemingly random appearance could not be a coincidence. There was a connection somewhere, and if Jake could just figure it out….

“Look, um, do you need help or something? I don’t know how much help I can be, but I can try.”

A trick? That’s not what Jake’s gut said. The offer sounded genuine, even if it had been rather hesitantly given. But if Jake had been wrong about this ghost recognizing him as the American Dragon, if this were all a trick to capture him, unconventional though it may be….

It probably wasn’t.

This ghost might be involved in this mess, but Jake had been out here for a while before he’d shown up. If this were merely a trap for him, someone should’ve come earlier.

Then again, he hadn’t spotted the other figure earlier, and this ghost had only come when he had. Distraction _and_ protection detail, maybe? Protecting the creature in charge of this storm or maybe guarding its source if it was caused by some magical artefact? This wasn’t the Huntsclan—even if Rose hadn’t wished them away, they’d have never worked with a ghost, so that ruled out remnants like 88 and 89—and he doubted Chang would willingly get this cold if she could possibly avoid it, so—

Somewhere in the darkness, someone whimpered.

Jake spun, looking for the source, and the ghost that had been talking to him shot off, swallowed by the snow faster than Jake had expected.

The whimpering didn’t come again.

“Okay, this is really weird,” Jake muttered. He stood there and listened, but even with the Ear of the Dragon, he couldn’t hear anything beyond the wind and the accompaniment of creaking tree branches. When he held his breath and concentrated, all he could pick up were the normal city sounds beyond the storm.

No whimpering, no sound of movement in the snow, no low murmur of voices.

Jake looked down, his enhanced eyesight allowing him to make out the depression in the snow where the ghost had landed, as well as the spot where he’d stood.

Ghosts didn’t normally affect the environment like that. It was supposed to take power and concentration. Effort. None of which had been particularly apparent when the ghost had been talking to him.

Assuming he wasn’t just supposed to think it was a ghost when it was really something else entirely.

“I hope Fu found out more than I did,” Jake murmured. He looked around one more time, and then he risked dragoning up and letting the wind carry him to the edge of the storm before flying back to the shop.

-|-

Well, that had gone well. Not. Danny had no luck locating the kid he’d heard crying, and the boy he’d talked to earlier had scrammed. At least he hadn’t run away screaming immediately. That might mean Danny hadn’t completely spooked the locals.

Danny sighed and flew back to examine the portal. It was hard to see the edges here, especially in the dark. Situated where it was, none of the green light of the Ghost Zone spilled through, and the portal was nearly invisible in this storm. The conflicting winds—both the wind from the Ghost Zone and the one that blew through this world—just made the snow worse, and Danny couldn’t tell if it was snowing here or just overcast, what with all the snow whipping in through the portal.

Not that it really mattered on that front.

It still looked like an ordinary portal as far as he could tell.

Danny stuck his head back through it, flicking intangible so the snow would just go through him, and saw that Frostbite was still there. “Um, you don’t have to wait for me, you know.”

“It is what I wish to do, Great One.”

“Right. Well, since you’re here, do you know if anyone else has gone through the portal? Should I be on the lookout for another ghost?” Sure, his ghost sense hadn’t gone off yet, but if he was looking for a ghost, then he could change tactics a bit.

“None of my tribe would stray,” was the firm response. “Even our newest members are happy here.”

Newest members. Okay. Danny didn’t want to think about how they got new members. “Okay, good. Just, um, checking. It looks normal over here. There’s nothing obviously set up to tear open a hole in reality.” Not that he really thought much electrical equipment would hold up under these conditions, but—

“Do you know where you are, Great One?”

“Some city, I guess?” The lights he’d seen hadn’t been far away. If they hadn’t been so close, he wouldn’t have seen them through the blizzard. “Does that matter?”

“I would advise that you be careful,” Frostbite said, which didn’t entirely answer Danny’s question. “There are some who are less than friendly towards our kind.”

Danny didn’t know if Frostbite meant ‘our kind’ as in ‘ghost’ or ‘kid’s idea of a nightmare snow monster’, but it didn’t really matter. Last time Frostbite had warned him to be careful and he hadn’t listened, he’d wound up playing Time Tag with Vlad. “I’ll watch my back,” he promised. “I’m used to it.”

“Not all threats are as obvious as the ones you know.”

“You know how often I deal with Vlad.” Not that Vlad was really subtle these days. Heck, Danny wondered why he’d ever been fooled by the guy.

“The hunter who slay me,” Frostbite said quietly, “was but a boy no older than you, and the ambush was brilliantly executed.”

Danny blinked. “What?” Was Frostbite saying what it sounded like he was saying? Danny had assumed that Frostbite had always resided in the Far Frozen, being one of those ghosts that had never been alive in the sense that Danny thought of as alive, but—

“I do not know if that organization is still active,” Frostbite continued, “for many years would have passed in the human realm since then, but events such as these would draw them to you. It is a wonder they have not already come to Amity Park. You must be careful, Great One. They will not hesitate to hunt anything that is not human, and they do not know mercy.”

Oh, fun. Frostbite was warning him about some secret shadow organization. As if a stable natural portal wasn’t already enough to draw the Guys in White in for an investigation, Danny would have to keep an eye out for some guys who weren’t afraid to hunt someone like Frostbite. More to the point, if the one that had taken out Frostbite had been a teenager at the time, that meant recruitment for whatever this was was done _young_ , which meant that anyone who showed any interest at all might be—

Crud.

The kid he’d talked to earlier.

What if _he_ was part of this? Incompetent, maybe, if his job was to kill anything that wasn’t human, but Danny’s sudden appearance hadn’t been normal by any stretch of the imagination, and the kid hadn’t blinked. He’d been startled by Danny’s sudden appearance, but he hadn’t looked terribly surprised by it. He’d just looked, well, half frozen. If he did belong to this organization, maybe Danny could talk him down.

Then again, it was entirely too likely that that encounter had just been a random coincidence. Chances were, the boy had promptly convinced himself that Danny wasn’t real or something similar, and Danny wouldn’t see him again. Yeah. That was more reasonable. He’d save the wild theories for the next time he ran into the kid under more suspicious circumstances than being out in the middle of a blizzard in the middle of the night without the proper clothing.

Fine, so it still sounded bad, but he was not normally this paranoid. If he really were in a city and not just some small town, chances were very good he’d never see the kid again, and he could sort out whatever this was and then everything would be fine. Frostbite just needed some help figuring out why this portal wasn’t closing. It was no big deal.

“If this closes and I’m stuck here, you’ll come get me with the Infi-Map, right?”

Frostbite smiled. “That is why I wish to watch the portal.”

“Right.” He should’ve known Frostbite had thought of the possibility. He would’ve considered that before even sending for Danny in the first place. “Thanks.”

“Good luck, Great One.”

-|-

“I’m not going to warm up for a week,” Jake complained as he burrowed deeper into the nest of blankets he’d heaped onto one of the chairs in the back of the shop. He’d changed into dry clothes, hanging the sopping, half-frozen ones in the bathroom upstairs to deal with later. Gramps had made him tea—he’d said Jake shouldn’t have hot chocolate at this time, and Jake had been too desperate for something hot to argue—and Jake wrapped his fingers around the steaming mug, letting its warmth seep into his bones. It was uncomfortably hot, but he was too cold to complain about that. He had much better stuff to complain about. “Shouldn’t Fu be back by now?”

“Patience, young dragon. The acorn does not become an oak overnight.”

Meaning Gramps didn’t know because Fu’s poker games were never predictable. How soon he was back depended on how much money he started with and how well he thought he was doing. Jake groaned. “Aw, man, G, I don’t know what this is. If the ghost I met really did create that storm, stopping him isn’t going to be easy.” He took a sip of the tea. “I mean, he made an impression in the snow. And it collected on him as he stood to talk to me. As far as the elements were concerned, he was as solid as I was. That’s not normal for ghosts. Assuming he actually is a ghost.” Then, as his mind jumped to a wild, horrible thought, he added, “Jack Frost isn’t real, is he?”

“Most folklore is rooted in truth,” Gramps said quietly.

“I’m serious!”

“You think I am not?”

“What are the chances that this is an elemental, then? Like Jack Frost?” If the ghost boy hadn’t called himself Danny, Jake would think this _was_ the real Jack Frost. Then again, with the sorts of things folklore got right and what it got wrong, Danny could be his middle name. Or Jack could be his middle name. Heck, it could be his dad’s name. Some lore really wasn’t that accurate.

“We will have a far better idea of that once we are further into our research,” Gramps said pointedly, tapping the cover of the book he’d placed on the table in front of Jake. “Tell me again of your encounter and all you observed.”

Jake knew the tactic for what it was, so he told the story again. Gramps hummed to himself a few times, making Jake wonder what he’d said differently, but aside from asking a few more questions, G didn’t say anything.

Jake was on his second cup of tea and his fiftieth or so reread of the first page in the book he was supposed to be checking through when Fu finally got back. “Yo, Fu, whatcha got?”

Fu shut the door behind him and walked over to stand between Jake and Gramps before saying, “It ain’t great news.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t hear a lot of great news when it comes to Am Drag business, so what’s the deal?”

“Marty was late to the game because of an emergency meeting, so this intel is pretty fresh, and he trusts the source. If rumour’s correct, the ghost king is in town.”

“Say what?”

“Was the ghost king not caged centuries ago?” The alarm in G’s voice was unnerving. Jake was used to calm or angry. Not wary. Not afraid.

Fu blew out a breath. “Apparently, he got out.”

“No, hold on, go back, there’s a _ghost king_? As in, a king of ghosts? Who’s like, what, a one-person Dragon Council?”

“More along the lines of supreme ruler of the land of the dead and all who reside therein. You know the type. All powerful, feared by everyone who knows his name, past full of unspeakable deeds, conquers everywhere he goes, yada yada, not someone you want to mess with.”

Jake stared. “And he’s here. In the NYC.”

“That’s the scuttlebutt.”

“Then I have to stop him.” They were not prepared for a ghost invasion. He was barely equipped to deal with a blizzard. The only hope he had was to stop this before it started.

Assuming it hadn’t already started, if Marty was right and the ghost king was already here.

Fu and Gramps exchanged looks, and Gramps said, “It is not something you should do alone, young dragon.”

“The old man’s right. The stories I’ve heard…. It’s nothing good. People, magical creatures…. They all got hurt. Mostly hurt as in they never got up again in this world and instead wound up serving the ghost king in his army.”

“Well, I’m definitely not dragging Haley into this. Or Trixie and Spud. If you two wanna be backup, fine, but you have to let me try first. Alone. Maybe he’ll listen to reason.”

“Jake. This isn’t the kind of guy you can reason with. No one without a death wish would try to do any of this alone.”

“I don’t have a death wish. I just want to protect you guys, because if anyone has bargaining power, it’s me, not you. And it sounds like not trying to stop him or at least talk to him would be bad for everyone, so I don’t have a choice.”

“You do have a choice. This is when we call in the Council.”

“And how long are they gonna take to get here? Or come to a decision? What if this ghost king guy decides to act first? I have to try.” If he survived this, his friends and family were going to kill him themselves, but this was what he was supposed to do. It terrified him, but the thought of what might happen if he did nothing was scary, too. “Besides. These ghosts under his control. They’d be more powerful than regular ghosts, right?”

“The ones in his inner circle? Yeah, they’re supposed to pack a pretty punch themselves. They were said to come ahead of their master sometimes and warn people of what’s to come if they don’t surrender, and the all-out slaughter was never an empty threat.”

Jake grimaced, hoping Fu’s info was out of date, but the answer itself had still been the one he’d hoped for. “That explains who I ran into, then.”

“I do not think—” Gramps started, but Jake cut him off.

“No, look, it makes sense.” It did. It made perfect sense to him. A ghost so powerful that interacting with the physical world seemed effortless? That’s what this Danny had been. “Fu, I met a ghost when I went out to look around. He must be one of the ones who’s supposed to come ahead of the ghost king. Even if he didn’t cause the storm, even if that was this ghost king dude, he was way more in touch with our world than Shackles Jack and his gang. He was powerful. It makes sense for him to have been leaching some of that power from someone else.”

“You also said he offered to help you,” Gramps said bluntly. “He did not warn that you must bow down and accept his master’s reign.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t know I was the Am Drag. I think he just thought I was some kid. He might have a soft spot for kids.” Right now, Jake was willing to take every advantage he could get—including the possibility that Danny hadn’t terrorized him because he wasn’t yet an adult. G would not have a similar advantage, and neither would anyone on the Dragon Council if they got involved. “I’ll be able to talk to him without him doing anything drastic, and then I’ll see what else I can get on this ghost king and we can figure out the best way to seal him into something.” He took in the dubious expressions facing him. “What? This is not the worst plan I’ve ever had.”

“Ain’t a high bar, kid.”

Jake frowned at Fu. “Hey, it’s my job to protect everyone, isn’t it?”

“And it’s my job to protect you, including from yourself. Or did you forget what a magical guardian is?”

“Just let me try this. I won’t try to find the ghost king on my own. I promise. Just let me talk to the ghost I saw and get some answers. And you guys can stay here and research the best way to seal away the most powerful ghost in all of existence.”

The looks he received told him quite plainly that they knew he was deliberately ducking out of doing research. And that they thought he was recklessly barrelling into a giant mess without a plan, even though he’d told them the plan. And, sure, the finer details of said plan were going to need to be worked out on the fly, but he was much better at that. Plans never went accordingly, anyway, so it was way better to have more wiggle room to figure out how to get out of a snag.

“Cool. I’m just gonna grab a warmer jacket and some boots before I head out.”

He was halfway to the stairs before G’s voice rang out from behind him. “If you are right about all of this, Jake, then who did you hear crying in the storm?”


	2. Chapter 2

Danny would’ve had a lot more luck figuring this out if he knew what he was looking for. If it weren’t a natural portal, if it were just tech, that would’ve been easy. Apparently, that would’ve been too easy, and he was not allowed to catch a break.

He couldn’t create portals. He couldn’t seal them up. With nothing obviously holding this one open, he didn’t know what he needed to do to make it close.

Frostbite’s warning didn’t sit well with him, either. He wouldn’t have said anything if he didn’t think he had reason, and apparently this portal was reason enough. And yet…. He’d still asked for Danny’s help, despite thinking there would be danger. And Clockwork had agreed, probably without hesitation, because he thought this was the way things were supposed to go.

Danny was a lot less comfortable with that knowledge than he’d been without it. Ignorance really was bliss sometimes.

He searched the park and the buildings beyond. There was no sign of the teen from earlier—he must’ve backtracked through the same set of footprints, since Danny couldn’t find any sign of him leaving or continuing on—and by the time the sun came up, Danny had to admit that he must be missing something.

Maybe the boy he’d met really was with some super secret organization that was a lot deadlier than the Guys in White, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe the government would show up any minute now to find out for themselves what held open this portal, maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe Danny would have to tell Frostbite he didn’t know how to fix this. Maybe—

Danny heard a sniffle.

He stopped flying, instead hovering in place and listening. He hadn’t imagined that, had he? There was someone here. There had to be. “Hello?” he called quietly. He didn’t need to be any louder, not if he’d heard something over the wind. He turned slowly in place, trying to pick out something other than the white drifts that surrounded him. The snow had stopped blowing in from the Far Frozen for now, but that didn’t mean another storm wouldn’t come.

All he saw was snow, a dull, unmarred white under the clouded sky.

That would make a lot more sense if his ghost sense had gone off and he was dealing with someone else who was currently invisible, but….

“Maybe I’m hearing things,” Danny muttered. Or maybe it was too cold for him to notice his ghost sense and someone was messing with him. Youngblood and Klemper could’ve teamed up. He wouldn’t put it past them. Klemper would just be happy for a friend, and Youngblood was an opportunist.

Klemper wouldn’t stay in hiding for this long, though. He’d make his move and ask Danny to be his friend, and frankly Danny wasn’t sure Youngblood had the patience to wait this long before doing something, either. When he’d teamed up with Ember, there’d been a much bigger payoff than what he’d get out of this. Danny couldn’t think of any ghosts that gained anything by staying in one spot in the human world and not doing anything, either. Technus sought out technology, Skulker thrived on the hunt, Ember needed people—

Maybe it had been the wind after all. It had been a sleepless night. Not that that was terribly unusual, unfortunately, but he still got tired. Danny did a slow flyby, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary, but nothing moved beyond the occasional skiff of loose snow in the wind.

“I’ll get something to eat, figure out where I am, and go from there,” he told himself. He’d dressed again before transforming to fly to the Ghost Zone, which now seemed like the smartest decision he’d made in a long while. Even better, he still had his change from the Nasty Burger stuffed into the pocket of his jeans. “If the portal’s closed by the time I get back, that should be a good thing.”

He didn’t think it would be closed, though.

Frostbite was right.

Something was keeping it open, and he had to figure out what.

-|-

_It was just the wind._ That’s what he’d told Gramps and Fu. Trouble was, Jake knew perfectly well that it wasn’t just the wind. The ghost—Danny—had heard the whimpering, too. He wouldn’t have reacted otherwise.

Hopefully, the fact that he’d reacted at all meant he cared about the living and was willing to listen like he’d said. Jake could really do with a win right now. Not having some king of the ghosts come and invade the land of the living would be nice.

Gramps hadn’t let him go out until the sun rose, insisting Jake drill some necessary magics ‘just in case’, as if anything he learned at the last minute would help him if this went sideways. He was more likely to forget it entirely, especially after not sleeping. Well, technically he had slept. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, G had told him to take a break, so he’d crawled back into his blanket nest and accidentally fallen asleep. That had lasted until he’d slid out of the chair and hit the floor. His shoulder still kinda hurt from the impact.

Considering Fu had told him he hadn’t even been out for ten minutes, though, Jake wasn’t inclined to count that as getting some sleep.

Jake munched on a granola bar as he walked into the park, picking his way across the snow to where he thought he might’ve been standing last night. Yesterday’s trail had filled in; it was hard to tell if the dips and curve of the snow were simply the result of the wind’s sculpting or if the shadowy depression really did hint at his tracks. He had to get his bearings as best he could from the landscape—natural and artificial—and while he wasn’t terribly practiced at that, the lack of new snow falling helped.

The snow that blew in his face because it wasn’t frozen down yet didn’t, though.

Jake didn’t have any way of finding Danny. Marty’s compass wasn’t going to be any help when the soul wasn’t in mortal peril, which meant Jake’s only hope of tracking down the ghost was going back to where he’d last seen him in the snow-covered park. According to Fu, this ghost king would have the power to tear a hole between dimensions—effortlessly, compared to how much trouble he’d had the time he’d dealt with the Krylock—which meant chances were very good Danny had come through one such hole. Finding said hole would be a start, if he could only—

“Hey, aren’t you the guy from yesterday?”

Jake nearly choked as he spun, and he ended up coughing as he faced the ghost he’d met last night. Danny was standing on the snow again, a half-eaten bagel in his hand, and he hadn’t been there when Jake had walked by five seconds earlier. He was doing a very good job of pretending to be nothing more than a kid who’d bleached their hair white, except for the fact that he obviously didn’t know how normal teenagers dressed. There were still things just slightly wrong, of course—eyes a bit too bright a green to be natural, skin not tinged pink with the cold, the complete lack of footprints in the snow around where he stood—but they were the kinds of things others would write off if they didn’t know any better.

Jake knew better.

“You okay?”

Jake nodded, taking a few deep, steadying breaths before he trusted himself to speak. There was no point in keeping up a pretense now, not when he needed to convince Danny to get him an audience with this ghost king before there was any kind of invasion. “I know what you are,” he said, hoping cutting to the chase would win him some favours. Diplomacy tended to be a lot of flowery talk, but Jake had never been good at that.

Danny took a step back. The snow crunched under his weight. “Meaning?”

“That I know ghosts are real and that that’s what you are. And I…. I need to speak with the ghost king.”

Danny grimaced. “You really don’t. Seriously, trust me when I tell you, waking that guy up again is _not_ a good idea.”

This was not going the way Jake had hoped. Sure, it wasn’t an outright denial, but Jake was certainly no closer to getting the introduction he needed to the ghost king. He didn’t want to admit his ignorance about the fact that ghosts slept, either, if Danny was concerned about waking the king. Unless that was a lie? Maybe it was a lie and Jake was supposed to call him on it. Was this a test? Gramps would pull something like this if he were screening people who wanted to meet with the Dragon Council.

“You don’t need to pretend with me, okay? I know the magical world exists. And I know the ghost king is here.”

Danny took another step back—slowly, like he was hoping Jake wouldn’t notice the distance between them growing. “I don’t think you know who the ghost king actually is.”

Jake sighed. He’d have to come out and say it. He wasn’t going to get anywhere otherwise. “I know you’re protecting him—”

“What? No! Protecting people _from_ him, yeah, but not protecting him. Why do you think he’s here, anyway? Last I checked, he was still in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, and even Vlad wouldn’t be stupid enough to let him out again.”

“I have it on good authority, okay?”

“Whose good authority? Because this is kinda a vital thing if you’re right. I’m just pretty sure you’re not.”

He wanted Jake to name names? Fine. Jake crossed his arms. “The Grim Reaper.”

Danny blinked. “Wait, he’s real?”

“Scythe and all. I’m the American Dragon. I have connections.”

“You’re a dragon.”

Jake rolled his eyes at the flat, disbelieving tone. He didn’t fault Danny for not knowing who he was, but he would’ve thought anyone who was even remotely involved with the ghost king—whether protecting him or overthrowing him, since Jake really wasn’t sure which was the case from how Danny was talking—would know some basic facts about dragons. He blew out a quick breath of fire to prove he was telling the truth and said, “Dragons have human forms.”

Danny stopped the slow, not-so-subtle retreat, but he didn’t relax entirely. Jake could still see the tension in his shoulders. “But you’re not wearing an amulet.”

“What makes you think I need an amulet?”

Danny opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, “Long story. Just…. Hold up for a sec. You’re a dragon, you know the grim reaper, and you think Pariah Dark is awake.”

“If he’s the ghost king, then yeah.”

Danny bit his lip. “I really hope you’re wrong. Last time he got out…. Let’s just say it was rough and I don’t want to have to go through that again. Um, you don’t happen to know where the grim reaper got his info, do you?”

“Where do you think? Marty’s not exactly unfamiliar with the souls of the dead.”

“His name is Marty?”

“That’s your focus right now?”

“Sorry. I just…. I didn’t think the grim reaper would have a normal name. That would be like Clockwork being, I dunno, Ben or something.”

Jake just stared, not understanding enough of that to comment. Who the heck was Clockwork?

“Never mind, that doesn’t matter.” Danny waved the unspoken question away, finally relaxing. “Look, whatever you heard, you’ve gotta be barking up the wrong tree. I came through the Ghost Zone last night, and it was normal, not a state of total chaos. Whatever we have to deal with, it’s not the ghost king.”

“We?”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, yeah. You’re not the only one who’s working off outdated or wrong info. I just…. Okay. You said you were the American Dragon. But you’re not, like, the only dragon in America, right?”

Okay, whoever this ghost was, he was definitely not connected to anyone with any political power. So, not someone who could help Jake get an audience with the ghost king if there was an impending invasion but someone who apparently didn’t like the ghost king enough to fight for him. That was hopefully good, unless the ghost king had the power to make any ghost fight for him regardless of what they wanted to do. Jake still wasn’t clear on that. He’d gotten the impression that the ghost king could control the other ghosts from Fu, but he certainly didn’t get it from Danny.

He could ask about that later. For now, there wasn’t any harm in giving out a little information, not when every other magical creature Jake encountered already knew it. “No, there are other dragons who live here. The American Dragon is a title. It means I’ve accepted the responsibility of actively protecting the magical world.”

“Gotcha.” Danny nodded. “That explains why you were worried about the ghost king. Look, he can’t be out, not unless it happened in the last, I dunno, ten hours. Not even. But we might have another problem.”

Great. That’s just what Jake wanted to hear. Though if the ghost king—or Danny himself—wasn’t behind the freak snowstorms, then Jake kinda already knew that. More information would be helpful, though. “What?”

“Okay. This might sound like a weird question, but do you know anything about some secret society of people who hunt down anyone who’s not, well, human?”

_What?_ Jake had thought he’d been following the conversation. He’d been wrong. “You mean the Huntsclan?” This couldn’t be them. 88 and 89 were not that competent, even if the Huntsclan had left behind something that could create something like this.

“Maybe?”

Jake swallowed. “This isn’t them, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he whispered, thinking back to Rose’s sacrifice. “They don’t exist anymore.”

“Are you sure about that? Sometimes when you think groups have disbanded—”

“I’m sure.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I’m sure, okay? _They don’t exist_.”

Danny winced. “Um, right. That’s good, I guess. Except that makes it more likely that this is the Guys in White trying to pull something, which is not good.”

“The what in what?”

“Guys in White. Shady government ghost hunters.”

“Uh huh.” He’d have to ask more about that later, too. “This isn’t the work of ghost hunters.”

“And you know that how?”

Jake kicked at the snow. “This? Not normal. Not for the NYC. Definitely not within, like, a three block radius. Centring on this park.”

“That’s just because it’s coming through the portal. The Far Frozen gets storms all the time.”

So there was a portal after all? Despite the ghost king maybe not being awake? “You could’ve led with that if you knew what this was!”

“I don’t know what this is. That’s the problem. Knowing the portal exists doesn’t tell me _why_ it exists. Natural portals don’t last this long. Something’s interfering.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. I never saw any tech last night. That’s why I was hoping it was those hunter people and not the government, because I really don’t want to think that the Guys in White have gotten smarter and sneakier since I last dealt with them.”

Something about this still didn’t add up. “Why are you looking into this?” Jake asked slowly.

“Same reason as you.”

That deserved a raised eyebrow. “I’m trying to figure this out because it’s my job as the American Dragon.”

Danny shrugged. “Okay, so not exactly the same reason. I’m doing it because I look pretty human for a ghost, which means not a lot of people will freak out if they see me. And because the ghosts who noticed the problem asked me to. Mostly because of the human-passing thing. I think.” He hesitated. “Well, chances are good Frostbite and Clockwork figured this would be a good learning opportunity for me, and they got this idea into their heads that they should mentor me, so probably that, too. I didn’t actually ask.”

Danny had mentioned Clockwork before, but Jake hadn’t heard of Frostbite. “And they’re mentoring you because—? You’re supposed to act as a protector of the land of the dead or something?” It couldn’t be the land of the living, seeing as that fell to the dragons. The magical world, at least, but there was still overlap.

“I dunno, I guess because I’m a fairly new ghost? It’s been like a year and a half. I’m still learning.”

He was a relatively new ghost. And one this powerful? Something still didn’t add up. “So they do that for all new ghosts?”

“Not exactly. I’m a bit of a special case.”

Jake waited.

Danny didn’t elaborate.

He seemed truthful enough. Jake admittedly wasn’t the best at picking out lies, but nothing Danny said raised any flags for him. He was more concerned about the fact that Danny wasn’t telling him everything, which was even more obvious in moments like this. Jake wasn’t sure of the reason for Danny’s caution, though. Maybe, as a new ghost, he didn’t fully understand the role of dragons, despite what Jake had told him.

Or maybe he was telling the truth about everything except his role in all of this.

“Can you show me this portal?” Jake asked. He’d have to watch his back, but there was no reason not to get what information he could out of Danny in the meantime. Even if it wasn’t all real information, as long as he took it with a grain of salt for now, Fu could help him sort through it later.

“Yeah, it’s this way,” Danny said, pointing ahead of them with the bagel in his hand before taking another bite out of it. He slogged along in the snow slightly ahead of Jake, leaving as clear a track as any human might.

Jake could buy the argument that Danny looked human enough for a ghost to be the one elected to investigate, but normal ghosts didn’t interact that much with their environment. Or eat human food, at least when they weren’t possessing a human body, and Danny’s sudden appearance last night made it clear he wasn’t doing that—at least if he were a normal ghost.

Special case indeed.

-|-

The portal wasn’t any easier to see in the daylight than it had been in the dark. It just looked like a shimmer in the air, the dull colours of the day not different enough from the Far Frozen to stand out. That, and it was about ten feet in the air. It was easiest to see when you stood directly underneath it, but Danny supposed it would be more visible from other angles if the sun ever came out from behind the clouds.

Danny swallowed the last of his bagel as the dragon boy stared up at the portal. Even from where Danny stood, he could see the way the other boy’s brow furrowed. He might be right about this not being ghost hunters—really, if they’d figured out how to do this without obvious tech, Danny was in trouble; it didn’t even matter who it was, because if someone who wasn’t the government figured this out, the Guys in White would inevitably find out and buy it up—but clearly he didn’t have an alternative solution. At least Danny didn’t have to worry about the secret hunter people. A dragon should have current information about that sort of thing.

“My name’s Phantom, by the way,” Danny said. It would be nice to have more of a name to put to the other teen than ‘dragon boy’—or American Dragon, since he’d called himself that.

The boy looked over at him in surprise. “Oh, uh, I’m Jake.”

“Nice to meet you, Jake.” Danny jerked a thumb towards the portal. “Got any bright ideas?”

Jake hesitated and then whispered something Danny didn’t quite catch. He _did_ catch the sudden transformation of Jake’s ear into a distinctly non-human ear, which was at least confirmation that the fire earlier hadn’t been a trick, but then the human ear was back and Jake was shaking his head. “There definitely isn’t any technology around here that could be keeping that open.”

Well, Danny had already figured that out, but he supposed it was nice to have a second opinion. “So do you have any other ideas?”

Jake offered him a weak smile. “Maybe the ghost king opened it up?”

“Even ghosts who have the power to open natural portals can’t keep them open for this long,” Danny said, figuring it wasn’t worth telling Jake he was wrong about the ghost king if he didn’t feel like listening. “Natural portals aren’t like holes in fabric that are just there until someone sews it up. They like to open and close. It’s more like briefly breaking the surface tension of water or something.” That had been Jazz’s explanation for it when Danny had tried to tell her about it, and it seemed to fit well enough. From the look on Jake’s face, he wasn’t entirely following, so Danny reiterated, “The portals want to close again on their own. I mean, yeah, some are open for longer than others, but they’re not open for this long. This takes energy.”

“If it’s not technology and it’s not a ghost thing, then it has to be magic.”

Danny reminded himself that he couldn’t argue a matter-of-fact statement like that when his experience with magic—and dragons, come to that—was limited. Especially when he didn’t have any better ideas. “How?”

“There are portal spells,” Jake said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

“And they normally open portals that stay open for this long?”

“Well, not in my experience, but it’s not like I make a habit of opening portals to other dimensions to test stuff out.”

Despite himself, Danny grinned. “Point taken. That’s not always the safest thing to do.” The look Jake shot him at that comment told Danny he suspected there was a story there, so Danny continued, “Why are you looking into this on your own?” He’d admitted that there were other dragons, so—

“Who said I was alone?”

“There’s nobody else out here. Even the people who live around here haven’t come out here. Which is weird, now that I think about it. There’s not some kind of magical warding, is there?”

“Not that we set up, unless Fu called in a favour without telling me, and he usually tells me.” Instead of telling Danny who Fu was supposed to be, Jake started to scan their surroundings, but there weren’t even kids out building snowmen yet. Granted, the snow wasn’t sticky enough for that, but that didn’t mean kids wouldn’t try. “Where did you say this leads again?”

“The portal? It opens up in the Far Frozen. Which is exactly what it says on the tin, far away and frozen. Lots of ice and snow and cold, except with some of the friendliest ghosts you’ll ever meet.”

“Wait, hold on,” Jake murmured. “You said the ghosts there don’t look human, right? So what do they look like?”

“Does that matter?”

“Maybe. It does if there’s a reason that this portal opened up there and it’s on my end, not yours.”

“You think someone was trying to get to the Far Frozen?” That didn’t make sense. People in the human world wouldn’t know about it. Not even all the ghosts really knew about it—or knew how to find it, even if they did know about it. Not that finding anything in the Ghost Zone was easy, seeing as it moved, but Danny’s efforts at mapping the part with which he was most familiar had convinced him they moved in some sort of set pattern or orbit. He just hadn’t figured out what. Or what influenced how quickly something moved, since that would go a long way to figuring out how movement in general worked there.

Jake nodded. He was slowly turning in place again, searching for signs of life that Danny didn’t think existed.

“Why?”

“Because we weren’t the only ones here last night.” Jake looked back at Danny. “You heard it, too, right?”

That whimpering. Jake couldn’t mean anything else. Danny nodded. “Yeah, and I heard it again today, but I never saw anything. It’s not a ghost—” or at least it wasn’t a ghost who knew him, even if they’d lucked out about keeping it cold enough to make Danny’s ghost sense unreliable, and Frostbite should really know if someone from his tribe had done this “—so I thought maybe I’d imagined it. At least until you brought it up.”

“I don’t think it’s a ghost, either,” Jake said slowly. Thankfully, he was too distracted to ask Danny why he was so certain it wasn’t a ghost. Jake raised his eyes to the portal again. “If you had to describe the residents of the Far Frozen, what would you say they looked like?”

“I dunno. Maybe yetis that look like they could snap you like a twig but are, like I said before, actually really nice? I mean, you won’t have ever seen a yeti, but if you just imagine—”

“No, I’ve seen them.”

Right.

He’d met a living dragon after meeting Dora and Aragon, and Frostbite had told him that he’d been killed, meaning he’d once been alive. Yetis being real really shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially in a world where the grim reaper was named Marty.

“And does that make sense with whatever you’re currently thinking?”

“Actually, yeah. Because yetis are really good at hiding in their own environment.”

“The city?”

Okay, the look Jake shot him this time was definitely one of annoyance. “Snow. There shouldn’t be one in the city.”

“Except you think there is.” He wouldn’t be bringing this up otherwise.

“A young one. Not, like, a baby, they’d be caught right away, but maybe a teenager.” Jake pulled a phone out of his pocket. “Hang on, I’ve gotta call someone.”

Jake turned away, so Danny didn’t try to listen in. He still caught the highlights—thinking they were looking for a yeti and that the info about the ghost king had been wrong—but he tried to focus on picking out a mini-Frostbite from their surroundings.

He failed.

He couldn’t see anything except snow drifts, even in the direction where he’d thought he’d heard something earlier. It was too open to hide anything here. The odd tree, park bench, garbage can—sure. But the jungle gym, slide, and swing set in the one corner of the park wouldn’t serve as any better hiding places for anyone of any size, and from what Danny had seen when he’d left to scout out a place to grab breakfast, this place hadn’t had snow before the portal had opened up.

Maybe if there really was a yeti hiding around here, they’d be more likely to reveal themselves if they realized that Jake and Danny weren’t, well, normal humans. Danny had flown more at night, but he’d either stuck to the ground or stayed invisible once it had gotten lighter (and busier) outside, and Jake’s tricks had been quick ones that would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking for them.

Danny closed his eyes and focused, trying to remember everything Frostbite had taught him about his ice powers. He didn’t just want to make a diamond or a sphere. He wanted to try to make a little sculpture of Frostbite. It would take enough skill to prove he’d had training—hopefully, if ice powers weren’t just reserved for the dead, it would show that he’d had training from some ghost yetis—and it would eventually melt away with the rest of the snow, so it wouldn’t stand out for long.

He opened his eyes to find Jake staring at him—or, more specifically, at the ten-inch sculpture of Frostbite that now rested in his hands.

“Yo, how did you do that?” Jake asked, coming over to reach out a finger and poke at it. “This is real ice.”

Danny shrugged. “Ice powers.”

“But you’re a ghost.”

“So? Some ghosts have ice powers. I’m one of them.”

Jake didn’t look like he entirely believed that, but he didn’t press the point. Instead, he said, “Fu’s checking with one of his contacts to see if he knows of any yetis who use magic like this.”

“The grim reaper again?”

“No, he plays poker with an actual yeti. It’s a long story. Point is, it’s not outside the realm of possibility, and it’ll be easier to end the spell if I actually know which one it is or what kind it’s related to.”

“I mean, portal spell. You said that before. Shouldn’t that be obvious?”

“There are different kinds of portal spells.”

“That lead specifically to the Ghost Zone? I mean, if you’re not wrong about that, then someone was looking to—” Danny broke off. “Oh.”

Jake frowned and echoed, “Oh?”

“I think Frostbite might’ve known what this was when he asked me to deal with this,” Danny said slowly. “That’s probably why he ran it by Clockwork first. They’re trying to teach me a lesson because they think I might get it into my head to pull some stunt at some point if they don’t.” He caught the blank look on Jake’s face and added, “They haven’t approved of every decision I’ve made in the past, okay? And sometimes they let me try something to figure out how bad of an idea it is.”

“These guys seem to be paying an awful lot of attention to you.”

“Trust me, the mentor-mentee relationship is a _lot_ better than the one I have with some of the other ghosts.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “What are you really?”

“A ghost. Which you apparently knew even before I told you my name, so I don’t know why you have so much trouble believing that.”

“Then why were you eating before?”

“Because I was hungry.”

“Ghosts don’t…. That’s not how it works!”

“Says the dragon to the ghost.”

“You aren’t the first ghost I’ve met.”

“Maybe not, but I can guarantee that I’ve met more than you, and I am one, so that makes me the expert.”

“Eye of the Dragon,” Jake muttered, and he stared at Danny for a few long seconds before turning to scan the park.

After he’d stared at a tiny cluster of trees for a good ten seconds, Danny finally asked, “Do you see anything?”

“I think so, yeah,” Jake murmured. “They’re younger than I thought. C’mon.”

Danny still didn’t spot the creature—yeti; Jake had been right—until they were practically on top of it. It just looked like another snow drift to him, right up until the point that it moved and blinked open ice blue eyes. It shied away as Jake dropped to a crouch, and Danny took a couple steps back before following suit.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Jake said. “I’m the American Dragon, and this is my friend, Phantom.”

Danny obligingly gave a wave with his free hand, though he was kinda surprised Jake had called him a friend when it was pretty obvious that Jake didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him.

“Did you get separated from your family? I can help you get back to them.”

The yeti’s mouth wobbled, and then it began to keen.

Danny took that as his cue, holding out the statue of Frostbite and saying, “Hey, um, I know Frostbite. He’s the leader of the Far Frozen. He told me yesterday that even the newest members of his tribe are happy, so if you’re missing someone, then at least you can know that they’re happy where they are even though they’re missing you, too.”

“That’s what you meant,” Jake whispered as the yeti quieted and reached out a large, blue-tinged hand to pick up and examine Danny’s ice sculpture.

“You were the one who figured out that the place where the portal led was important,” Danny pointed out. “I just have the advantage of knowing what’s on the other side.”

Jake nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but then his phone rang.

The little yeti was on its feet and running before Danny could fully comprehend what was going on.

Danny blinked and abruptly realized three things: he couldn’t hear Jake’s phone any longer, the yeti wasn’t moving, and there was a very familiar weight of a medallion his chest.

“Clockwork?” he asked, scrambling to his feet and turning to see the Ghost of Time shift from his youngest form to his oldest. “What gives? Does that yeti get captured by scientists or something and change the timeline because we spooked him?”

“Not if you catch him.”

Danny didn’t bother to hide his skepticism. He could’ve flown fast enough to catch up to the yeti even if Clockwork hadn’t frozen time on him. “So this rates interference but something like Freakshow getting his hands on the Reality Gauntlet doesn’t?”

Clockwork smiled.

“Why are you really here?”

“It became increasingly apparent that the current timeline was not going to diverge into one in which you built the working relationship you will need with the American Dragon.”

“I really hate that sound of that,” Danny muttered. “Are you going to tell me why I will need to work with Jake in the future?”

“The details will become clear in due time,” Clockwork said, which was the not-answer Danny had been expecting. Only, he then added something Danny was very much not expecting: “However, it would be prudent for the ghost king to cultivate and maintain alliances in the human realm.”

Danny stared.

Clockwork’s form shifted again, growing younger.

“You’re not serious. Tell me you’re not serious. You can’t really want me to act like some kind of intermediary between Jake and _Pariah Dark_.”

Clockwork’s smile grew. “No, I do not.”

“Then who, the Fright Knight? He’s hardly better.”

“Tell me,” Clockwork said in a tone of voice that told Danny he already knew the answer, “have you learned anything from your lessons with Princess Dorathea?”

Danny blinked. He didn’t take lessons from Dora. Sure, he went to visit her—Sam and Tucker sometimes came along—and they talked about a whole bunch of stuff, but it wasn’t lessons. It was just…interesting stuff. Stuff he should know, like basic rules within the Ghost Zone, and sometimes histories and the different regions and things like that. It’s not like he was going to ask _Vlad_ any of that. Or Clockwork. Or Frostbite.

“After Pariah Dark’s reign came to an end,” Clockwork said, “there were countless meetings held where possible contingencies were discussed, and the treaty signed by the high ghosts contained many clauses stipulating what should occur should he ever again be freed and recaptured.”

“I think I only understood half of that.”

“I would suggest,” Clockwork said as his form shifted to that of a child, “that you begin to remedy that. It will be more difficult for me to act as your regent once you are no longer deemed a minor in the human realm, whatever arguments I make about your circumstances, and you will need to begin taking on more responsibilities as your time allows so that you are better prepared to fully step into your role.”

“Wait, what?” What role? And what did Clockwork mean, saying he was acting as _Danny’s_ regent? That made no sense. Regents—

The pieces finally clicked into place.

“Oh, crud.” Jake’s grim reaper friend _hadn’t_ been wrong about the ghost king being in town. “But if I’m the ghost king because of what happened with Pariah Dark, why are all the ghosts still attacking me? Even Vlad hasn’t given it a rest!”

“The right of challenge is still binding,” Clockwork said mildly, and it took Danny a few precious seconds to translate that into _the winner of the fight gets to be the ruler_.

Oh joy.

“Can we make it _not_ binding? So I can actually get some sleep?”

“I do not believe the alternatives are as desirable, but we can certainly discuss them.”

Danny glanced at Jake, who was still frozen. “Um. Maybe not now.” It was hard enough to accept everyone in the Far Frozen calling him Great One and Saviour of the Ghost Zone; he needed some time to wrap his head around the fact that he was technically the ghost king now. “Just…. Was this all a setup? To make sure I met Jake and made an ally or whatever?”

“Such interference is frowned upon by the Observants.”

That meant yes. This was interference, and not just the fact that Clockwork had stepped in to talk to him now. Jake had thought this was due to magic, but Danny wasn’t convinced a child could pull off something like this, especially not on their own. Clockwork? Clockwork would have the resources to make the right tweaks to ensure the magic worked as intended and was stronger than it should be without anyone being the wiser. He could make sure a portal just happened to open up and stay open where it would draw the attention of the American Dragon. “You just said you were acting as my regent. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Clockwork’s form shifted again. “Appearances are everything. Sometimes it is beneficial to appear to hold less power than you do.”

Great. Political games. Just what he wanted. If he turned out to be any good at that and Vlad tried to take credit for teaching him….

“ _Time in_.”

“No, wait—!” But it was too late, of course. Clockwork was gone, and the medallion around his neck had disappeared. Danny huffed and flicked invisible before flying towards the yeti. He caught it around the middle, burying his face in its fur as he lifted it off its feet and tried to make calming noises. Since the poor thing was still shaking in his arms when Jake jogged up a minute later, Danny figured he hadn’t been very successful with that.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jake said into the phone, and then he flipped it shut and looked at Danny, who had dropped his invisibility the moment his feet had touched the snow again. “Thanks to you, too. You reacted faster than I did.” He reached out and stroked the yeti to get its attention and then said, “Hey, I’m sorry for scaring you, but it’s really important that you stay with me until my friend gets here. Can you do that for me?”

“I’m going to let you down now, okay?” Danny asked. Jake caught his eye and gave a slight nod, which was good, because Danny hadn’t heard anything from the yeti.

“I’m going to have to close the portal you opened,” Jake told the yeti. “It’s not safe for everyone, and using this much magic would draw attention even if you hadn’t risked coming to the place of the hunt to do this.”

The place of the hunt? Jake had gotten a lot of information already, it seemed. Certainly more than Danny understood. He stayed quiet, letting Jake comfort the yeti and explain things and otherwise do a much better of handling the situation than Danny would’ve expected. Jake had coaxed the yeti over to a bench so they could all sit down, but even twenty minutes later, it had barely volunteered any information beyond nodding or shaking its head.

Still, Jake had obviously learned enough to piece together what had happened, from either the yeti or his friend Fu. As Danny understood it, someone had hunted down the yetis here, and while this one had escaped, not all of them had been so lucky. This one missed its family—friends?—and had somehow managed to find a portal spell and had tried to use it. Thanks to Clockwork, whatever had been done had worked, mostly, except for the fact that the portal had opened up where the yeti couldn’t reach it and go through—which was why said yeti was lost and alone and reluctant to leave while the portal was still open.

It was kinda sad, knowing that helping the yeti didn’t mean helping it reunite with those it had lost, but since Jake had never pulled Danny aside to ask if that was possible, Danny figured offering to go through the portal and find them wouldn’t set the best precedent.

Jake’s face was flushed with the cold by the time an elderly man walked through the park with his dog and stopped by their bench. Jake’s lack of panic the moment the man had appeared wasn’t the only reason Danny assumed that Jake had arranged this, and neither was the fact that Jake patiently explained to the yeti that they were going to help find its family, if it would only go with the man and the dog now. No, Danny was entirely too used to suspicion to be oblivious to it now. He saw the man’s pointed look towards the portal and the way the dog hadn’t taken its eyes off of him—especially when the others had been focused on the yeti.

He had a feeling these people would definitely be better allies than enemies.

“Fu said the markers are probably buried under the snow, including the warding that kept the normal people out of here without their realizing it,” Jake reported after the others had gone. “He doesn’t think this was from a potion, so it’ll be physical, just not chalk or salt or something that would’ve melted when the snow hit. I thought I would’ve felt it if the barrier were physical, but considering how cold I am right now, I probably shouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t. Whatever it is, I’m going to burn through it, and the portal should close once it’s disrupted. Easy.”

Jake didn’t seem to find it odd that a child could apparently do such powerful magic, which either said a lot about how little Danny knew about magic or how little Jake knew about portals. Or maybe Jake just knew some powerful kids. Either way, Danny didn’t want to try to explain that he suspected Clockwork’s involvement right now, mostly because that would involve explaining exactly what Clockwork could do—and his current position within the political structure of the Ghost Zone, which _had_ to hold some water with the Observants, whatever Clockwork pretended.

“I’ll go through it before that,” Danny said. “Just…. You said something about a hunt?”

“Yeti fur is valuable on the magical black market,” Jake said quietly. “They’re friendly and not that difficult to catch if you know what you’re doing. A family cut through the NYC last year. I…. It’s rare for them to venture this far from the mountains. I didn’t find out about the attack until it was too late. They didn’t all make it.”

Danny had been wondering if those hunter people had been involved, and Jake hadn’t said they weren’t. Maybe that organization had disbanded more recently than Jake wanted to let on. Or maybe bounty hunters and poachers were a lot more common than he wanted to admit, especially if he saw it as his job to protect the magical world.

“It’s true what you said?” Jake asked. “About the…the newest members of the tribe in the Far Frozen?”

“Yeah. I haven’t met everyone, but Frostbite would have.” Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, um, this is going to sound weird, but we should exchange numbers before I go.”

Jake stared at him.

“I can help you with ghost stuff, and you know a lot about everything else, so you could help me with that if I ever have a problem. One of us will. Hopefully not soon. Just….” This was sounding even worse out loud than it had in his head. If one of Clockwork’s alternatives to this right of challenge thing was some kind of debate, he was better off taking his chances with the fighting. “It would be nice to have another magical ally to go to. And, well, a friend who really understands all of this. My closest friends are all human, and they try, but sometimes they just don’t get it.”

“You have a cell phone?”

That wasn’t the worst thing Jake could’ve said, and it made Danny grin. “Yeah. Sometimes it dies or gets destroyed in a ghost fight, but it’s actually surprisingly durable.”

Jake snorted. “I know the feeling.”

“So, allies?”

Jake smiled and held out his hand. “Friends.”

“Friends,” Danny agreed, shaking on it.

He’d explain about the whole ghost king misunderstanding later.


End file.
